South Padre Island

I thought I'd post some pictures from South Padre Island, so you can get a flavor of our environment. We are on the 1st floor of the building, just right of center. There are two floors below us, but they are the parking garage - the big blank wall shown here. Kay shown standing on our balcony. It's a 2 bdrm, 2 bath. The living room/kitchen area is quite small, but it's adequate for us.

We see parasail surfers whenever the winds are up - which is almost always. The parasail shown is the view from our balcony. There are a couple of drilling platforms straight out from our building, perhaps 3 or 4 miles out. There are usually a couple of ships anchored out that far, waiting for a slot in the Brownsville harbor.

The urban picture is taken from the top (11th) floor of our buiding, looking north. The farthest buildings are less than a mile away, and mark the end of the developed part of the island. The island goes on for perhaps 50 miles, but is a wilderness. You can see the gulf to the right, and the lagoon to the left.

The dark line on the beach is a temporary pipeline. They are about to start dredging the harbor, and they will pump the dredged material from the harbor to the end of the pipe, a distance of about 5 miles. They use the sand from the harbor to "nourish" the beach, and they keep extending the pipeline farther north, week by week. I think they hope to be done by the time the spring breakers arrive, but they seem to be getting a late start. I doubt they'll be done.

We're getting the very south end of the storm that you are getting tonight. The temp started out about 72 this AM, and will get down close to freezing tonight, then a little colder tomorrow night. The television is full of news about how you and your house can survive temperatures in the high twenties. It's all relative.